PUNJAB WITNESSES TURNCOAT SEASON' AHEAD OF ELECTIONS

Two Congress MPs Preneet Kaur and Ravneet Bittu and the sole AAP MP Sushil Rinku and an AAP MLA Sheetal Angural have recently joined BJP.

- TARUNI GANDHI

In what appears to be a season of turncoats especially in Punjab, three MPs and an MLA from this border state have recently switched their sides ahead of parliamentary elections.

Two Congress MPs Preneet Kaur and Ravneet Bittu and the sole AAP MP Sushil Rinku and an AAP MLA Sheetal Angural have recently joined BJP after leaving their respective parties.

There are speculations that some more politicians may switch their sides before the general elections.

The ruling AAP suffered a significant blow as two of its leaders defected to BJP on Wednesday. Jalandhar MP Sushil Kumar Rinku and Jalandhar West MLA Sheetal Angural crossed over to the saffron party.

Interestingly, Rinku has changed his parties twice in less than a year. He left Congress to join AAP before Jalandhar bypoll in 2023 and now he left AAP to join the saffron party.

Rinku’ recent move, which followed weeks of intense speculation, put AAP on the defensive.

A few days earlier, Congress MPs Ravneet Bittu (from Ludhiana) and Preneet Kaur (from Patiala) joined BJP on different dates. While late Punjab CM Beant Singh’s grandson Bittu’s move to join BJP came as a surprise, whereas Preneet Kaur’s move to join BJP was on expected lines as his husband former Punjab CM Amarinder Singh had joined the saffron party a few years ago.

In an apparent retaliation to the defections, Congress leader Partap Singh Bajwa took to social media platform X, posting, “He took one of ours, they took two of his.

@BhagwantMann ji, the pit you have dug in our way, you yourself have now fallen in that well,” seemingly referring to the ‘yaar mera titlian varga’ (my friend is like butterflies) jibe made against Congress MLA Sukhpal Khaira by CM Bhagwant Mann during the budget session of the assembly.